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During the last five years numerous books and articles have analyzed the faith of American presidents, focusing on one or several chief executives or considering the broad sweep of the presidency. Randall Balmer's God in the White House: How Faith Shaped the Presidency from John F. Kennedy to George W. Bush is a welcome addition to this literature. Balmer, a professor of American religious history at Barnard College, Columbia University and a leading scholar of American evangelicalism, traces how Americans moved from disregarding religion as a principal consideration for voting in 1960 to expecting candidates to reveal their religious convictions and explain their relationship to God by 2004. He analyzes and deplores both the "politicalization of religion" and the "'religionization' of politics" during these years.
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Balmer labels himself an evangelical "whose understanding of the teachings of Jesus points him toward the left of the political spectrum." He censures the leaders of the Religious Right for distorting the gospel and defaulting "on the noble legacy" of 19th-century evangelical activists who worked to help the less fortunate. When faith is "aligned too closely with a particular political movement or political party," Balmer argues, it loses its integrity and prophetic voice. Religion plays a more positive role in society when it operates from "the margins of society," not the centers of power.
These presuppositions guide Balmer's thoughtful analysis of the nine presidents from Kennedy to George W. Bush. Balmer assesses the personal faith of these presidents and evaluates how it affected their work in the oval office; in a series of appendices he includes a major speech by each president to illustrate their religious convictions. Those presidents who strove to separate their faith from policymaking or used it to pursue liberal political ends are evaluated more positively.
Kennedy's pledge to divorce his religious commitments from political considerations helped him win the closely contested 1960 election and "demolish the shibboleth that no Roman Catholic could ever be elected president." Kennedy argued compellingly during the 1960 campaign that a president's religion should not affect how he performed his duties. This conviction, coupled with the negative reaction of many Protestants to Kennedy's Catholicism, led him to rely little on his faith in making decisions and formulating policies. Lyndon Johnson, despite exhibiting only "perfunctory, even performative" piety, was nevertheless inspired by the Golden Rule to develop his Great Society programs to help the poor and supply medical care for the elderly.
Balmer faults Richard Nixon for misusing religion, especially by holding worship services in the White House, and for hypocrisy. The stain of the Watergate scandal, the disgrace of the Vietnam War, and Gerald Ford's pardon of Nixon enabled Jimmy Carter to appear as "a kind of savior" who could lead Americans "out of the wilderness of shame and corruption to the promised land of redemption and rehabilitation." Intrigued and inspired by Carter's claim that he was a "born again" Christian, many evangelicals voted for Carter in 1976. Despite Carter's genuine piety and pursuit of numerous policies that reflected biblical priorities, most evangelicals deserted him in 1980. Initially galvanized by their desire to defend "the integrity of evangelical institutions against governmental interference," Balmer argues—rather than by opposition to abortion—evangelicals, who had generally been politically disengaged, created the Moral Majority and similar organizations in the late 1970s to support candidates and policies consistent with their values. Upset by Carter's refusal to try to outlaw abortion and his promotion of politically liberal policies, the Religious Right played an active role in helping elect Ronald Reagan, a divorced and remarried man who "had the weakest claim to evangelical faith" of the three major candidates. Preoccupied with the economy and the Soviets, Reagan neglected many key aspects of the Religious Right's agenda. Nevertheless, most evangelicals loyally supported Reagan in the 1984 election and throughout the turmoil and scandals of his second term.
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